Read Online Southern Ruby by Belinda Alexandra - Free Book Online

Elva truly gotten to him about not giving us anything? If that was the case, we were in trouble, because the medicine had cost ten dollars and I’d had to get it on credit. I was trying to help myself, but Aunt Elva kept thwarting me at every turn. I couldn’t win for losing.
    Uncle Rex and I talked about the weather and how it was finally starting to turn cold. Then, out of politeness, I asked about Eugenie, even though she wasn’t an ounce nicer than her mother and I didn’t really care how she was doing. ‘I can’t believe it’s almost a year since we made our debut. How is she?’
    Uncle Rex shifted uneasily on his feet and didn’t reply.
    I hadn’t had any offers of marriage, but that was to be expected. I was surprised that Eugenie mightn’t have either. Aunt Elva had made out that Pierre Leboeuf was very taken with her, and even though Eugenie wasn’t the most attractive of girls she did have a sizeable dowry.
    â€˜There are plenty of men who would love to have a pretty girl like you for a wife,’ Uncle Rex said, not jovially as he usually would have but with a tone of desperation. ‘Don’t restrict yourself to the Creole community, even if your mother tells you to. There are plenty of fine men out there — you just have to find the right one.’
    He tipped his hat and hurried off. It was the strangest conversation I’d ever had with him.
    I went straight home to give the medicine to Maman, then I sat on the gallery for a while, mulling over our money problems. Everyone was telling me that a man was my ticket out of genteel poverty, but if I married, I hoped it would be for love not money. For me, work was the obvious solution. Why then did things have to be so darn complicated? Taking control of one’s destiny seemed like a fine characteristic to me, but in Creole society a woman working was akin to walking the slippery road to hell. I had to work but I had to hide it, and that made most of the jobs I could apply for out of the question.
    Mae brought me a cup of tea, and I sipped it while watching people going about their business on Royal Street. A young woman holding a flag on a stick caught my eye. A group of tourists — smartly dressed in twin-sets, tweed suits and two-toned saddle shoes — was following her. Tour groups were a common sight in the French Quarter, but something about this guide caught my attention. Then I recognised her: she was the architecture student I’d spoken to outside Tulane University. Out of curiosity, I went downstairs and joined the group.
    â€˜This is an excellent example of a Creole cottage, built in 1793,’ she said, pointing to a building behind her. ‘Note thesteeply pitched roof and the dormer windows, and the tall shuttered doors designed to increase the airflow or keep out the heat.’
    Next she led the group to look at the matching red-brick Pontalba Buildings on either side of Jackson Square, and explained that they’d been commissioned by Micaela Almonester, Baroness de Pontalba, an aristocrat and a real estate developer.
    â€˜Baroness de Pontalba was known as a shrewd and vivacious woman with an excellent head for business,’ the girl told us. ‘These two buildings were the most ambitious of their kind at that time in America, and the Paris-influenced cast-iron grillework came to define the aesthetic of the buildings in the French Quarter from then on, giving the area its uniquely feminine character.’
    The story of Baroness de Pontalba was one of Maman’s favourites to tell. A Spanish Creole born in the late 1700s, she was placed into an arranged marriage with her French cousin Célestin, who plotted with his father to get their hands on her fortune, which the Baroness’s mother had been astute enough to protect when her daughter moved to Paris. Frustrated by their efforts to break her down, Célestin’s father shot the Baroness four times